Custom, uncustomary

Programs for this past weekend's perfect nuptials; ceremony and cocktails behind an 18th century stone house, party and bonfire at the barn swathed in foliage and paper lanterns. Petit fours were served and they danced to "Flesh and Blood."

Estate of transformation

photo from Nowness

The world was greener this weekend. Mouths, branches, opened wide, drew in, poured out thick, deep, chlorophyll hues: last gasp of summer. One of our girls got married in the mountains, and she gave us a gift of finding each other, together again, for the first time in half-a-decade or so. We stood in an airstrip and stared at the stars. We came home with a dragon kimono, some pink glass, and my heels are plastered with grass.

MAO

photo from ?

Cleaning house, posting Loves, listening to Beach House, in anticipation of the arrival of my best Bahraini-Middle Western girl.

My Daisy

Cornflowers in a field of rye, Russia, 1909

Yesterday I held Helen, spied The Garden, heard Happiness, laughed with my mother and brothers, signed up for a writing workshop with FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK without moving to Shangri-L.A., and waited for him to come home.

Tulip tables & emerald earrings

our house by Alice Engel

Bored? Vote for our Home for the Stationery Heart in the CB2 - The Selby contest. Teepee and Coral really want their portrait done, Selby-style.

My castle, my books.

Reading, or for a moment, fitfully submerged in, Elizabeth Hardwick's Sleepless Nights. Hardwick, on Billie Holiday:

She was late for her mother's funeral. At last she arrived, ferociously appropriate in a black turban...Her mother, Sadie Holiday, was short and sentimental, bewildered to be the bearer of such news to the world...The great singer was one of those for whom the word changeling was invented...She shared the changeling's spectacular destiny and was acquainted with malevolent forces.
Her whole life had taken place in the dark. The spotlight shone down on the black, hushed circle in a cafe; the moon slowly slid through the clouds. Night-working, smiling, in makeup, in long, silky dresses, singing over and over, again and again. The aim of it all is just to be drifting off to sleep when the first rays of the sun's brightness begin to threaten the theatrical eyelids.

If it's cold, I've done it

photo from ?

I've got things I'd like to talk to you about today, but I'm late, as usual, so I'll puzzle it out on my 1.33 mile walk.

My castle, my books.

photo by K

Just finished elegant, refined, autumnal Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill, a novel of entrances and exits, and automobile-induced perambulatory flights around a city mourned by any who leave: New York. Netherland is a literary beacon for both writer and reader, a slim book of perfect proportions, and, in the long shadow of The Great Gatsby, "O'Neill runs faster, stretches out his arms farther and approaches the glow of greatness."

Custom, uncustomary

One week old, and Helen's already put me to work.

Only daughters

Because I am a fool, my most beautiful and very special thing went dove down the pipes and out of sight on Friday. I mourned by the side of the ocean, with A. and G., who is in true mourning. We ate mango and almonds from Sahadi's, washed down with iced coffee. There were "nuggs" too, but I don't eat "nuggs", so I waited for tacos. We ate Rockaway Taco, I drank watermelon juice, I felt scrubbed clean and satiated with salt, delicious gossip, tacos, but oh, good god, I still miss my most beautiful and very special thing.

Little Murderess

Cinderella

An unexpected, luxurious treat is coming to my way today. Oh, ye round beasts, lurking under couches, thriving behind dressers, savor your last moments.

My castle, my books.

Another bildungsroman, this time, The White Book, by Jean Cocteau, sent to me by the dear Daniel-Halifax of Hibernian Homme. And so, a Cocteau revivals begins.

One afternoon, during a geography lesson, we heard that he was dead...In spite of everything, eroticism had received its death-blow. Too many little pleasures were disturbed by the ghost of the handsome animal whose charm had moved even death itself.

Orbs

via unruly things

This season is waning. What have I done? I'm stoking this fear fire, with greatest intention of being pushed close to the rocks, so I can dive under, and push off.

My castle, my books.

frm Life

Hauling through Bird by Bird, folding down pages, circling passages. My words here have been light; the general idea is that they will live somewhere else.

A tidbit of Bird by Bird, written by a mother completely mad for her child :
Having a baby is like suddenly getting the world's worst roommate, like having Janis Joplin with a bad hangover and PMS come to stay with you.

Patricia Neal. January 20, 1926 – August 8, 2010.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Ms. Neal, with her marble drenched in honey voice, has left having lived quite a life.

1000 ships

? via the ugly earring

Welcome to the world, Helen Wright Dunphy. We've been waiting for you. You were born last night under the sign of the lion: you will be warm, generous-hearted, whip-smart, and loyal. So really, you will be a reflection of your parents. May your life be full of grace and love. May you one day say, "I am beloved, and my beloved is mine." Hello, beautiful girl.

Forgotten castles, long-lost televisions

Thornton, Temple of Flora

We went to see Arcade Fire last night. Pfff. Unmoved.

Mango with chili, lime, and salt before the show, french fries after? I could dance a foxtrot.

The courage of the French

Faye Dunaway via Tales of Endearment

The divine cruelty of feminine beauty: to whom does it belong? Possessor, lover, creator, passerby?

Haunted by the story of Lea T and her dreaded member. This is a terrible party, love, if we can't all be invited.

My castle, my books.

Angela by Sasha Kinens

I tore through Winter's Bone on the beach this weekend. Confusing to mix salt air and sunscreen with the frozen Ozarks. Brother casually asked I was enjoying my "erotic tale." Gross, brother, gross.

Furiously so

at the Acne opening via Scout Holiday

I'm off with R, again, spying, peeping, prowling.